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CONTROVERSY AHEAD OF COP28: International leaders and environmental groups reacted to reports that COP28 president and UAE oil magnate Sultan al-Jaber was using his role to pitch oil and gas deals to foreign governments—saying that the developments, if true, are precisely the type of conflict of interest they feared when he was tapped to lead the summit.
The tranche of leaked documents, obtained by the BBC and the nonprofit group Center for Climate Reporting, included plans for al-Jaber, the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, to discuss oil and gas interests with more than a dozen foreign governments in the run-up to COP28, including China, Brazil, Germany, and Egypt.
It is unclear how many times al-Jaber raised the prospect of commercial activities during the talks, though doing so would likely violate the code of conduct set by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which stipulates that officials should not use their private roles to seek advantage in meetings.
The news was dismissed by a COP28 spokesperson, who said the documents in question were not used in any meetings for the summit.
But al-Jaber faced calls to resign this morning.
“The appointment of the chief executive of one of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies to lead COP28 was always a brazen conflict of interests which undermines the meeting’s ability to reach the outcome we desperately need,” Amnesty International’s climate advisor, Ann Harrison, said in a statement.
Al-Jaber “claims his inside knowledge of the fossil fuel industry qualifies him to lead a crucial climate summit but it looks ever more like a fox is guarding the hen house,” Harrison added.
Greenpeace International policy coordinator Kaisa Kosonen said that the allegations are “totally unacceptable and a real scandal.”
“The climate summit leader should be focused on advancing climate solutions impartially, not backroom deals that are fuelling the crisis,” Kosonen added. “This is exactly the kind of conflict of interest we feared when the CEO of an oil company was appointed to the role.”
And EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, asked about the report in an interview on BloombergTV today, said the UAE and other countries in the Middle East can “no longer hide behind the logic of the past.”
“There is no way we can hide or we can slow down our ambition,’’ Hoekstra said. “The focus should be on the climate action, full stop.”
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MORE ON THE LEAKED DOCUMENTS AND THE UAE LOBBYING PUSH: Though the extent to which al-Jaber used the talking points and briefing materials is unclear, the leaked materials suggest potentially highly damaging conflicts of interest.
Briefing notes prepared for Germany, for example, note that Adnoc “stands ready to expand LNG deals” with the country, while China was to be told that Adnoc is “willing to jointly evaluate international LNG opportunities” in countries including Mozambique, Canada, and Australia.
Other talking points included calling on Brazilian Energy and Climate Change Minister Marina Silva to help Adnoc secure its $2.1 billion offer to purchase stakes in Brazilian oil and gas processing company Braskem, and telling oil giants Saudi Arabia and Venezuela that” “there is no conflict between the sustainable development of any country’s natural resources and its commitment to climate change.” Read the BBC’s full report here.
BIDEN NOT GOING TO COP28: President Joe Biden will not attend the world leader’s summit Friday and Saturday on the onset of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Dubai, according to the official White House schedule released on Sunday.
According to the New York Times, a White House official did not give a reason for why Biden would not make an appearance at the two-week summit, which is expected to be attended by King Charles III, Pope Francis, and other leaders from nearly 200 countries.
Senior White House aides suggested that the war between Israel and Hamas had taken over the president’s schedule as he pressed for a pause in fighting and the release of hostages held by Hamas.
“They’ve got the war in the Middle East and a war in Ukraine, a bunch of things going on,” Biden climate envoy John Kerry said last week. Kerry and his team, however, will be in attendance for the conference.
A spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris said last week that she does not intend to attend COP28.
Why it’s important: Addressing global warming has been a priority for Biden, who has earlier called climate change “the ultimate threat to humanity.” Plus, Biden has attended the annual climate conference for the last two years. Climate activists are likely to be angered by the president’s decision to not attend COP – but analysts have said it’s not typical for a U.S. president to attend every climate summit. Read more on that here.
OPEC LASHES OUT AT IEA OVER ‘MOMENT OF TRUTH’ COMMENT: OPEC leaders pushed back today on a new International Energy Agency report that said the oil and gas industry is facing a “moment of truth” in the shift to clean energy, dismissing the conclusions of the Paris-based agency as overly narrow and failing to consider critical issues of energy security and energy affordability faced by many nations.
“Energy security, energy access and energy affordability for all must go hand-in-hand with reducing emissions,” Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais said in a statement. “This requires major investments in all energies, all technologies, and an understanding of the needs of all peoples.”
His response comes just days after the IEA published a report in which it said the oil and gas industry must “choose between fueling the climate crisis or embracing the shift to clean energy.”
Al Ghais argued that the IEA’s approach is contradictory to the “bottom up” approach outlined in the Paris climate agreement, which called for each country to decide its means of contributing to emissions reduction based on its national capabilities and circumstances.
He also pushed back on their assessment that carbon capture utilization and storage technologies are an “illusion,” noting that they have been endorsed by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in recent reports.
Bigger picture: Al Ghais’s statement comes as tensions between the IEA and OPEC have reached a fever pitch in recent months, amid deepening divisions over the role that fossil fuels should play in the global shift to renewable energy.
The IEA predicts global oil demand will peak in 2030, an estimate that OPEC has dismissed as “dangerous” and one that risks investments for oil and gas projects.
GREENPEACE ACCUSES CHINESE OIL AND GAS COMPANIES OF GREENWASHING: Greenpeace is accusing big oil and gas companies in China and others of using carbon offsets to “greenwash” their imports of natural gas while failing to promise to cut emissions.
As Reuters lays out, firms such as PetroChina and CNOOC Gas and Power have signed long-term contracts with Shell to buy “carbon neutral” liquefied natural gas, which uses “forest offsets” to balance out carbon emissions.
Greenpeace – which has long opposed fossil fuel producers using carbon offsets to count toward their emissions reduction goals – said the “carbon neutral” branding was misleading.
“For oil and gas companies in particular, carbon offsets are a smokescreen to obscure their continued, redoubled carbon emissions,” said Li Jiatong, project leader with Greenpeace in Beijing.
According to Greenpeace, many of the offsets were not being measured consistently and sometimes were being double counted. And some forests tied to offset schemes were vulnerable to fires that could turn them into a carbon source, rather than a carbon sink. Read more on that here.
VIRGIN AIRLINES TO CROSS THE ATLANTIC USING 100% SUSTAINABLE FUEL: Virgin Airlines will fly from London to New York this week using 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), a first-of-its-kind journey that is designed to demonstrate the potential for SAF in the push to decarbonize commercial airline transport.
Virgin said the flight will take place Tuesday using one of its Boeing 787 Dreamliner planes, which will fly the roughly 3,500-mile journey from Heathrow to JFK. A select group of passengers will be on board.
Why it matters: Global air travel accounts for roughly 2% of energy-related CO2 emissions, according to the IEA, which said that number is slated to increase further by 2050 without widespread use of SAF, including at the commercial level. Read more from Canary Media here.
COLORADO RIVER DEAL BECOMES CASH FLOW FOR FARMERS: A widely popular deal to conserve water from the shrinking Colorado River is turning into a windfall for powerful farmers and tribes in the West, with the agreement driving up the value of existing deals to save or transfer water by nearly 50%, according to a Politico investigation.
The $1.2 billion in funding that made the deal possible comes out of a $4 billion pot of money in the IRA allocated for mitigating drought. That provision, which was secured by Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, was created when the Southwest appeared to be on the edge of disaster. Water levels at Lake Mead had fallen to record lows. The Biden administration offered the funding to water holders in Arizona, California and Nevada in exchange for leaving their water in Lake Mead. That incentive was paired with a threat: The Interior Department launched a process to wrest control of the river away from the states and impose cuts if a plan to save significant amounts of water hadn’t been reached.
But by the time a deal had been reached, the immediate disaster had been averted, thanks to unusually heavy precipitation across the West.
Under the plan, the three states along the lower river agreed to conserve 10% of their water between now and 2026. But Politico found much of that water was already being saved by the farms and tribes getting paid. Much of the contracts that have been signed or are in negotiation are based on prior deals to conserve or transfer water using almost entirely the same practices. But the new federal contracts pay significantly more. Read more on that here.
PORTUGAL BEING TAKEN TO COURT OVER CLIMATE: Environmental groups have filed legal action against Portugal over claims that the government failed to put into practice its own regulation to tackle climate change, Reuters reports.
In 2021, Portugal approved a set of regulations and legal instruments to combat climate change, but three green groups – Ultimo Recurso, Quercus and Sciaena – argue that “little progress” has been made to meet the policies’ goals and deadlines.
In a joint statement, the associations said the government has yet to create a portal for citizens to track the status of regulation and publish a carbon budget, which would establish an emissions cap.
They’ve also said that the government has not completely enacted measures of its national energy and climate plan (PNEC), as well as sector-specific regulations for climate mitigation.
The government said in June that it was reviewing the PNEC and would aim to generate 80% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2026. Renewables supplied around 68% of the country’s electricity from January to October this year.
The significance: Climate activists have been increasingly turning to courtrooms to challenge governments and activity enabling fossil fuel companies. In the last five years, the number of climate-related court cases have more than doubled. More on that here.
The Rundown
Bloomberg China’s remote deserts are hiding an energy revolution
Wall Street Journal Now for some good news about climate
E&E News Meet Pelosi the climate czar. (Not that Pelosi.)
